IIRC update (the Finder command) does the job, also.

On Mar 4, 2008, at 11:20 AM, Mark Lively wrote:

> On Mar 4, 2008, at 10:56 AM, Emmett Gray wrote:
>
>> I've found a bug (10.4.11) which is probably still in Leopard  
>> since I looked at the Leopard bug fix technote and it's not  
>> mentioned. I've reported the bug to Apple.
>>
> Looks like it is fixed in leopard.  Not to surprising since the old  
> system event osax was built on top of FSRefs which are deprecated  
> in Leopard.
>
>> If the target folder of the "list folder" command has a name  
>> longer than 32 characters you get a "bad filename" error. I can't  
>> use the Finder to get the info because the very reason I'm needing  
>> the command for is to force the lazy Finder to update the contents  
>> of the folder!
>>
> I use touch to update the folder.
>
> set aFolder to choose folder
> do shell script "touch "&quoted form of posix path of aFolder
>
> -Mark
> Who likes touching folders.
>